Descent Into Light
by Sahara Storm
Summary: [Oneshot, KuroFai] He is falling into darkness. No more running…


So, one day, I came home from school. I had little homework, so I decided to do some writing. I went over some of my in-progress fics in my head. There was _Defying Gravity, and Other Neat Tricks_, which was beginning to look up. I could put my lazy ass to _And In Love_, which only really needs a few more paragraphs to complete itself. I could try to get the ball rolling on my Gene/Finny smut, or I could add a line or two to my Sirius/Remus snark/humour thing. There was also the NejiTen, _Veritaserum_, that I could work on, or maybe my SasuSaku, _For the Sake of the Mission_, which I'm so looking forward to doing. I could even try to crack open SCB, which seriously needs some TLC.

So, with all these things in mind, I sat down at the computer, opened up MS Word, and naturally, started and finished something **completely different**.

Oi.

* * *

**Title:** Descent Into Light

**Fandom:** Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE

**Pairing:** Kurogane/Fai

**Rating:** PG

**Word Count:** 1000

**Summary/Description:** He is falling into darkness. No more running…

**Warning/Spoilers:** **SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 125 **(though I have the distinct feeling that I was the last shcmook to read it, and all spoiler warnings are now irrelevant). Gratuitous… abuse… of… ellipses… XXXXXXDDDDDDD. Un-betaed.

**A/N:** Unfortunately, this makes only a token amount of sense, and it is not porn. :( And is it me, or am I starting to write weirder and weirder:-/

**Disclaimer:** Don't you all _wish_ I owned TRC; Chapters 112 and 125 would have happened a whole lot sooner if I did. Or better yet, I'd have just cut to the smut.

* * *

He is falling.

_("Kurogane! Syaoran and Fai haven't come out of the water!")_

He tumbles into a black, black hole, with no sense of where he is, or how he got there. His senses are skewered; he feels pain and sadness and futility and relief and an ache within that makes his head spin. But what can he do? …He is falling.

_("His eye is… blue…You ate it, didn't you? His eye.")_

He falls without regard for the obstacles that stand in his path, the obstacles with which he collides; pain is inconsequential, for he falls, and he does not see any probability of stopping. So what if he bleeds to death rather than deteriorate within the halls of time, down this bottomless spiral of a black hole? He falls.

_("I will erase anything that gets in my way.")_

But how, though? How did he begin this fatalistic descent into nothing? He, vaguely, remembers happy days; smiles and laughter and loving service to a loving king. He remembers playful touching and tussles, warm feelings, and that pleasant tightness in his chest that said, _this is home_. He remembers smiling, and meaning it.

_("For the sake of you and the princess, HE CHANGED.")_

But then… things changed. Things are always changing; twisting, turning and convoluting, and sometimes he yearns for constants. But it was not for him. From one thing to another, his world kept changing. His king was no longer the person he knew. There was a remoteness in his eyes that he could not place, and a strange new coldness to his attitude; gone were the light, pleasing gestures of old. Before long, he was having to make a decision that would institute the biggest change of his life. He took the plunge… and then he ran.

_("The magician should have known that too, yet he risked it anyway.")_

And then there was the Witch, and thereafter came new things and faces and friends… and of course, him. And then came new worlds and travels and more people, and more faces, all built around this journey, this strange business of dimension travelling that had taken them to places never before even fathomed. All the while, the children quested the feathers, the warrior made his path homebound, and he… he ran.

_("…It's no use." _

"_What do you mean?!?")_

And there were trials and losses and battles and wins and gains and goals and searches and revelations and friendships and bonds and secrets and a whole treasure chest's wealth of fun at the ninja's expense, because if it bothered him so much, who _wouldn't_ take the opportunity to tease him cross-eyed and seething with anger?

_("What kind of a person would just resign himself to that?!?!")_

And then there was danger and death, the little Madame who had courted them, so innocently dogged their heels, whether plain in sight or out of mind. They always evaded her, tricked her, neatly side-stepped her in that uncanny way that they had. But now, it seemed that she had caught up. (Ah, so _now_ he remembers…) There was a fight to be fought, a cause to be won, a risk that was_ worth it_, and a decision to be made. He had made it. And now… he falls.

_("…I'm sorry.")_

Maybe… maybe it is for the best. After all, this heralds the end of his running. For after the descent, there can only be the comforting dark, and at last, he will not have to run anymore. The children will mourn, but the warrior will take care of them. They shall cope, and they shall move on, leaving him to rest in his cocoon of darkness where nothing and no-one can pervade. No more hiding. No more lying. No more searching.

_("Witch, is there any way to save this guy?")_

No more running…

_("…There is.")

* * *

_

_(He could only barely make out the voices through the smorgasbord of pain laid out across his mind; they were merely a confusing tinnitus of sound that rose and fell intermittently. But one of them… one of them stood out; he could place it anywhere._

"…_I get it. I'll pay the price for the water. So hand over the blood."_

_Upon hearing the words, something gripped him firmly by the heart, like a vice, and would not let go. …No. No, Kurogane couldn't do that. He couldn't take the risk; he shouldn't make that sacrifice. He wouldn't let him. The lone eye fluttered weakly in a bid to open itself; his throat worked to force out the sounds._

"…_S-stop…"_

"_SHUT UP!!!" _

_The roar near quaked the ceilings of the building in its sheer volume. Kurogane had shouted at him many times before (many, many, _many _times before) but never with that undercurrent of desperation; never with that edge of pure liquid rage that far transcended the quality of anger that the warrior usually had for him. The red eyes blazed like a sunset scorching the horizon and everything beyond, and for a moment, the magician was lost._

"_If you want to die so badly, _I_ will kill you," was the intonation, chilling and stark. "Until then, _live_."_

_It was like upturning a bucket of ice-cold water onto his head. For a few moments, he could do nothing but stare up at the man (his companion, his friend, and now apparently, his life) in shock and incredulity. He didn't understand. The ninja had no need to do this. Why would he _do_ this?_

…Maybe for the same reason that _you_ would, _a sly (hopeful?) voice whispered._

…_It was a thought._

_His lips twitched into something of a smile; the lone eye coffined itself to rest in a sign of acquiescence. Maybe so. The words were harsh, and had hardly given him a choice about anything. It had been an order, in its simplest form. But, then again… _

_Maybe so.)

* * *

_

But he was wrong. After the descent, at the bottom of that dense, fathomless hole… there was light.

_There **he** was.

* * *

_

**A/N: **Toldja it made little in the way of sense.

Feedback gets you… nothing, admittedly, but my love. And if you feel like pointing out mistakes and irregularities (I only read this over, like, three or four times) you can _even_ have my babies. (shrugs eyebrows)


End file.
